Category Archives: Bruce Springsteen

2007: WOUNDS, BLESSINGS AND A THANK YOU

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It would be inexcusable of me to end this year without thanking the more than 160 regular members of the Kahrmann Blog as well as the thousands from my country and around the world who have visited the Kahrmann Blog in 2007.

It is a humbling thing to know people from my country and from around the world think enough of what I write to read it. It is my sincere hope that all your lives are going well and, if not, that things get better for you. We all deserve to be ourselves in the world safely.

I thought I’d touch on a few things here at year’s end.

WOUNDS AND BLESSINGS

WOUNDS

Like any year, 2007 has had its share of both. As some of you know I work throughout the year with trauma survivors, primarily survivors of brain injuries but other traumas as well. Moreover, many of those I work with battle with the demons of addiction, alcoholism. One young man I worked with died this year as a result of the latter and another man my age left this world because of cancer. Not to be left out, I almost died last June when, among other things I discovered I had a heart condition, which is manageable but there nonetheless.

This year has again reacquainted me with the reality that I will not be able to have any real relationship with my 30-year-old daughter and my two grandsons, at least not now. I’ve also had to disengage from a woman I care about deeply. She and her two sons (I love them both) have a safe place in my heart, but whether the friendship resumes is yet to be seen.

Professionally I have gone through some rings of fire but so it goes when you are a human rights advocate. I’ve been one long enough to know there will some blows to endure. And I’m okay with that.

BLESSINGS

– Best of all, I am still sober. There is nothing more precious to me than my sobriety. Without it, I am done, and I know it. As a sober man for more than five years now, I am finally living life as me. My father’s death when I was 15 robbed me of sacred gift of being myself safely in the world. Sobriety returned it.

– Michael Sulsona. Michael and I have been friends for more than 30 years now and in recent years have realized and voice to each other that we have become brothers.

– Philip and Vincent Sulsona. Two young men that have called me Uncle Peter since they could talk.

– Frieda Coloccio. Frieda is Michael’s other half. She is a miracle in life who knows what loyalty of the heart means; she lives it.

– Atticus and Rowan: Two young men that will always have a place in my heart.

– Bruce Springsteen: God bless you, sir. Many times in life, your songs have helped me through the darkest times. Saw you twice this year and will see you twice next year. I hope someday we meet so I can thank you in person.

– The Kolbowski Family, for letting belong for a time.

– My three dogs: McKenzie, Milo and Charley.

– My survivors: To all the survivors I have worked with and spent time with through this state and beyond. You do more for me than I can ever hope to do for you. I love you all.

– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela: For continuing to be my guiding lights through advocacy’s toughest days.

– Bill Buse. Thank you, bro, for being the greatest therapist on earth for me, and for believing in me all these years.

– For my daughter, Jennifer and my grandsons, Daniel and Adam.

– For my Dad, who has been my guiding light all my life, even though he left this world when I was 15. You saved me when I was a boy, during the dark days of homelessness and you got me up off the ground when they shot me down, Dad. I love you, I love you, I love you.

REMEMBER TO LIVE AND LOVE YOUR LIFE

This would be my message to you, my reader.

Remember to live and love your life. Don’t miss it. It’s yours. A sweet spring rain, a soft winter snowfall, the laughter of a child, the soul warming taste of good food, all these things are as real as the reality of bills, job titles, income, your looks, your weight, your height and on and on.

Remember to live and love your life. Enjoy the buds of spring, a piece of jewelry just made, a song just sung, a guitar chord played, the rhythm of Latin drums or the soft delicious cadence of a baby laughing.

Remember to live and love your life. Enjoy what’s in the cup you have, don’t let what you think is missing stop you from enjoying what is not.

Remember to live and love your life. Don’t forget to tell those you love that you love them. No such thing as saying it too much.

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Have a wonderful New Year…my love and respect to you all.

Peter

KEEP THE DOOR OPEN AND FOOD ON THE TABLE

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Early Sunday morning, the second snow storm of the year, the house warm and toasty, stocked with food, good coffee, even some hot chocolate and jazz artist Charles Lloyd playing a piece called “Song for Her,” a piece so eloquent and pure it stills my fingers at times as my eyes wet up at the beauty of the notes that seem to drift into the air, tiny jewels all.

It has been an amazing year, filled with joys and struggles, beginnings and endings, losses and gains, moments of exhilarating joy and some of heartbreak. In many ways it has been a year like any year. As life is all things and comes to us on its own terms, it is your relationship with those terms that makes the difference. I was in an emergency room this year and learned my health was so precarious I was in danger of dropping dead from a stroke or heart attack at any second. After receiving a few units of blood I gave a speech the next day and went come to contemplate the fragility of things, not to mention my foolishness at not taking better care of myself. I am better, by the way.

I saw two Springsteen concerts this year and will be going to two next July. I am writing more than ever before. I have made a wonderful new friend in Brampton, Ontario. Recently I was talking to a close friend about how I know I am supposed to be finishing my memoir but I am having so much fun writing a novel called “Twigs” I don’t want to let up. He said, “Write whatever the hell you want.”

I thought, “Uh, okay.” It’s amazing how someone else can say something so clearly and you find yourself shaking your head wondering how the hell you missed it in the first place.

People have entered and left my life. My daughter struggles with the behaviors of addiction and she and my grandsons are out of reach.

As an alcoholic I cherish my sobriety. A woman I know has many years sober under her belt. I was talking with her recently about some of the year’s struggles and the early days of sobriety when I was in the “pink cloud” and all of life seemed wonderful. She smiled and said, “One time I was in the “pink cloud” and my sponsor said, “Not to worry, this too shall pass.” ”

We laughed. She is right. All I can do, or all any of us can do, is pray for those we love and care about and, as my best friend Michael says, “Keep the door open and food on the table.”

And so what about next year? What plans do I have? What do I hope for? I have plans for sure. I also know that the Robert Burns sentiment, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry rings true, yet it’s fun to make plans and set some goals. But it is wise to be careful and not get so wedded to them that if they change, or go awry, as they are want to do, you don’t spin yourself into a tizzy.

Next year is a special year for me. On October 2 I will turn 55, the same age my father was when he died. There is something about this that moves something deep inside me that I can’t put into words.

So here’s a dose of my plans. I will finally read my father’s copy of “the lives and times of archy and mehitabel” by Don Marquis. I plan on completing the three books I am writing. I will spend a few days in a cabin in New Jersey’s Stokes Forest, where my father went when he was a boy and where he took me when I was a boy. And I might go on a cruise. Get a cabin with a balcony and watch the ocean and write and read.

I have other plans too, and while all plans are subject to change, it’s nice to have them. And I don’t mind the change.

Two things are for sure. My sobriety comes first – and I will keep the door open and food on the table.

MEMOIR EXCERPT: SECLUSION

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NOTE: This excerpt was written about a period of time in my life in 1985.
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At my kitchen table, drinking coffee, smoking a joint, get me out of here. I am done with the world outside my window. My switch is turned off. One second there is light, the next, all is dark. I am better in the dark now. I’d been the protector of friends, girlfriends, strangers too.

Once in Brooklyn me and a friend of mine see a young black man running down Court Street pursued by angry whites. Catching him they hit him with a pipe and beat him. He is on the ground screaming for his life. My friend and I race in, grab the battered young man, shielding him with our bodies against a car, raging back at the crowd pressing in, promising to damage someone bad if we have to go down too, the crowd pressing in, looking to get at him, terrified and bloodied. A man, older than me and my friend, a big Italian man, comes out of his store and joins us in our protection. Police arrive and take the bleeding terrified man to the hospital.

I am at my kitchen table drinking coffee, my switch is off. I can’t protect a man running down any street now. I can’t protect me anymore. I can’t leave my apartment. I can think of no reason to want to.

I am listening to Bruce Springsteen. I listen to nothing but Springsteen. There is something there, something safe, grounding, deeply familial. His songs bring me to memories of safe places and safe times; summers in Ocean Grove with my father’s parents, Grandma and Grandpa. I gobble up the ineffable magic and mystery of boardwalks and Asbury Park, beaches, and the forever ocean; they bring me to Rumson with Mommom and Poppop, my mother’s parents; they bring me to a time when the world was safe, when my father was still in it. Springsteen’s words are strong and real and emotionally courageous and, best of all, honest. Over and over again I listen to Independence Day and No Surrender, although I know I have surrendered I know my independence is gone, his songs remind me of what was, and help till the soil of what could be.

It is raining hard and there is thunder and I am, for the moment, happy. I cannot hear thunder without thinking of Beethoven. He has been in my heart since forever – a glorious presence of thunder and beauty, of sweetness and heart. The rain strikes the kitchen’s Plexiglas window and rivulets run down. The entire world I know is in this rain and, for the moment, I rejoice because I am part of this world again, for the moment.

There are times I catch myself believing the day might come when I will actually be happy, free of this apartment cell. A day when there will be a yard and flowers, roses even; and there will be wildflowers. I will make sure of that. There is something explosively free about wildflowers: Queen Anne’s lace, Chicory, Bull Thistles, Golden Rod, black-eyed Susan’s, Daisies, Asters, so glorious a tapestry. I will be able to sit and look and smile and swell with happiness. Still, I believe things like this are possible – maybe.

I remember when I was homeless wondering what business a boy like me had having dreams and hopes like this. I remember when my biggest dream was to be able to sleep in clean sheets with a real pillow and a clean pillowcase. And, if I was really lucky, there would be a refrigerator filled with food, eggs and orange juice and real butter and fancy stuff like mayonnaise and mustard and, of course, ketchup; and ice cream! I remember these dreams and hopes and I remember believing too that dreams like these don’t come true for homeless boys. They don’t come true for boys who failed their mothers by quitting dance. They don’t come true for a boy whose father’s died because the boy was such a terrible bastard. A day or two after my Dad died I asked my mother if the doctors did every thing they could to save him. She said, “Maybe if you hadn’t been such a bastard he would’ve had enough strength to live.” Her eyes were stones.

Maybe the wildflowers will come.

At my kitchen table, I remember hard cold nights. I am 17 walking down MacDonald Avenue in Brooklyn near Church Avenue. It is mid-winter and cold sears through my clothes and bites into my bones. It is past midnight and nowhere to go. I am tired. My feet hurt. I’ve been walking for hours. I am tired of trying to find a place to stay warm every night and, if I’m lucky, sleep. I stop walking and decide to give up. I stand there, the cold, free of my movement, bites down harder. I wonder what I give up means. It means kill myself or keep walking.

I keep walking.

DEAR BOB WOODRUFF

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Dear Bob Woodruff,

You and I and far too many others are survivors of traumatic brain injuries. You and I and far too many others who have survived traumatic brain injuries, or any trauma for that matter, have found themselves in the insidious grip of guilt. You and I and far too many others like us are guilty of nothing. Because you feel guilty doesn’t mean you are guilty, it means that is how you feel. It is a feeling, not a definition.

It was the explosion the wounded you, it was the gunshot that wounded me, it was the car accident or the fall or the assault or the stroke that wounded so many others. It is these events and these events alone that provide guilt its just living quarters

In recent interviews I have watched you and Lee take the wide-open courage step of letting people see what it is like to suffer a traumatic brain injury and what it is like to live with one. I have heard questions seeking to know how far back you are. Would you say 95 % they ask? As you and Lee and your family already know, the answer is not that easy and my thought would be, put down any instinct to measure and gauge that answer and live.

I work with survivors like us nearly every day and recently I asked them how they would describe living with a brain injury on a daily basis. There were answers like, Well, there are things we can’t do any more and other statements like they (the injuries) make it harder to manage our emotions and I don’t remember things as well as I did and I can’t talk the way I used to. In each of these discussions these answers would land on the table and we would all look at each other, shake our heads, and nearly in unison acknowledge that none of these answers come close to describing what it is like to live with a brain injury on a daily basis.

Here is what we did agree on. Living with a brain injury is different every day. In fact, living with a brain injury has one reality when rested and another reality when fatigued. We also agreed that none of us are defined by our injuries nor are we defined by the symptoms we deal with as a result of our injuries. We also agreed that none of us are diminished by our injuries, even though there have been and, for some, still are times when we feel diminished because of our injuries. We also know that there are times we are treated by others as if we have less value and less worth than others and that treatment too delivers an inaccurate message about who we are.

Years ago a very wise old man was asked what it was like to age. He paused and said, We are each like a lit light bulb. You have to decide, are you the bulb, which breaks down over time, or are you the light inside the bulb? We are the light inside the bulb, and that never dies.

The light of who you are, Bob Woodruff, is not gone. It is not damaged or diminished by the trauma you have survived. While you may not see the light all the time, while you may not see its luster and brilliance all the time, it does not mean it is not there all the time. From time to time life blinds us to the light that is our humanity’s unbending value and worth. Those moments of darkness do not mean the light is gone. Darkness, like emotion, are experiences in the moment and of the moment. Neither are definitions. The inner light and human value of all survivors is present all time.

Needless to say, the words written here apply to all of us for all of us in life encounter experiences that blind us to our worth, yet none of these experiences remove or diminish our worth unless we allow them too.

There is a nugget of American Indian lore I am particularly fond of. A warrior went to his chief and said, Chief, I have two wolves battling inside me, the good wolf and the bad wolf. Which one is going to win? The chief said, Whichever one you feed the most.

Keep feeding the good wolf as you are, Bob Woodruff. And remember, there will be times when people will ask for your attention and your presence and the healthier choice will be to say no and give yourself and your loved ones time away from all others. Saying no can prompt another bout of undeserved guilt, so here is another expression. Taking care of your self is not an act of disloyalty to anyone else.

Stay in the day, remember to live, and keep listening to Bruce Springsteen. You and I are very much in lock-step when it comes to the Boss. His songs got me through many a dark day and helped me remember that the light, for me and for you and for all of us, really is always there.

In his last album he sings We Shall Overcome. We will.

Warmth and respect,

Peter S. Kahrmann